Wednesday, June 27, 2018

"Piece of My Heart"

Erma Franklin (1967)

The English diva Joss Stone did "Piece of My Heart" and did a version with Beverly Knight who also did her own impassioned version. Etta James did one along with Aretha Franklin. The most famous "Piece of My Heart" is probably that sung by the raspy voiced Janus Joplin but perhaps the greatest is that performed by Erma Franklin at The Soup Kitchen in Detroit back in 1992. Erma's eyes are literally burning with passion and her back up singers and instrumentalists all exude that look that music people evince when they're in the middle of an iconic performance. Watch Jerry Butler "the Iceman" singing "Only the Strong Survive." "I want you to come on, come on, come on and take it," Erma croons. Even though you're riveted to your seat you have the feeling that you're the one who is about to take off. It's as if it's your song and it makes you want to sing.

About Me

Francis Levy's debut novel, Erotomania: A Romance, was released in August 2008 by Two Dollar Radio.
His short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star, The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other publications. One of his Voice humor pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins). He is presently the Co-Director of The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination (philoctetes.org), where he supervises roundtable discussions on topics as varied as “The Psychology of the Modern Nation State” and “Modern Traffic Theory, Behavior, and Imagination”.